1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to nucleophilic amine functionalized polyolefins, a method of producing nucleophilic amine functionalized polyolefins by reacting a polymer carrying an electrophilic functional group with a diamine, and the use of same as compatibilizers to make blends of polyolefins which are otherwise incompatible.
2. Background Discussion and Related Art
The blending of two or more polymers has attracted wide interest for a variety of reasons, including the development of new polymer blends and "alloys", new products, as well as the desire to recycle post-consumer plastic waste materials.
One of the technical difficulties with recycling of post-consumer plastic waste materials is the incompatibility of the different polymer materials found in plastic waste stream such as polypropylene, polyethylene, polystyrene, polyvinylchloride (PVC) and others. Generally speaking blends of incompatible or thermodynamically immiscible polymers produce blends which exhibit poor mechanical properties and processing difficulties.
Nucleophilic Amine Functionalized Polyolefins (NAFPO's) are of interest for polymer blending and alloying, and hence the development of new polymeric materials. There are many commercial products of acid and anhydride functionalized polyolefin in the marketplace, but there are few products which are effectively capable of reacting and/or coupling with same. Although nucleophilic amine functionalized materials can react and couple with acid and anhydride functionalized materials, NAFPO's are difficult to make because of the high reactivity of nucleophilic amines. For example, Exxon Corporation is developing a Ziegler-Natta copolymerization process involving masking and demasking the amine functionality. Moreover, K. T. Chung of Penn State University utilizes a borane approach to make NAFPO's. Hydrogenation of acrylonitrile rubber can also yield nucleophilic amine containing nitrile rubber. However, these processes are relatively expensive and most of them are difficult to commercialize.
Other processes and compositions are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,822,688 which relates to an adhesive composition consisting essentially of polypropylene modified by grafting with an acid anhydride to further react with a compound bearing at least two groups capable of reacting with the anhydride.
Moreover, U.S. Pat. No. 5,130,378 relates to copolymers prepared from olefinically unsaturated compounds having a molecular weight of 600-20,000 and containing 0.1% to 6.0% by weight of secondary amino groups.
Furthermore, Japanese Patent No. 93-274505/35 shows amino functional copolymers containing imide substituted by amino-alkyl.
It is an object of this invention to provide a new NAFPO composition and an improved method for producing NAFPO's. It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved compatibilizer to make blends of polyolefins with polar polymers.